Section policies

RiCL only publishes contributions in English in four main forms:

1. Papers reporting on research based on or derived from corpora.
2. Research papers reporting on corpus construction, annotation, the development and application of corpus tools, software, etc.
3. Book reviews in the field of Corpus Linguistics.
4. Review articles in the field of Corpus Linguistics.

 

1. Research papers reporting on research based on or derived from corpora

Papers reporting on research based on or derived from corpora should between 6,000 and 10,000 words, including title, abstract, references, notes, appendices, tables and figures. It is highly desirable for articles to have a sharp, clearly-stated focus, with aims made explicit from the outset and every section contributing to show the validity of the research and of its conclusions.

2. Research papers reporting on corpus construction, annotation, the development and application of corpus tools, software, etc.

Research papers reporting on corpus construction, annotation, the development and application of corpus tools, software, etc. should have between 3,000 and 5,000 words, including title, abstract, references, notes, appendices, tables and figures. It is highly desirable for articles to have a sharp, clearly-stated focus, with aims made explicit from the outset. These papers should include explicit information about the availability of the tool/software/corpus being described and a discussion of potential applications.

3. Book reviews in the field of Corpus Linguistics

RiCL will only consider for publication reviews about books dealing with aspects related to the field of Corpus Linguistics and published within three years of the date of submission. Book reviews are substantial reviews covering one single book or comparative reviews between two to four books on the same topic. Book reviews should offer an objective critical assessment of the book(s) in terms of their contribution to the field of specialization targeted at. At the same time, they are expected to incorporate the author’s assessment of the volume(s) in terms of their relative value and scope, as well as to indicate directions for future research. Formal aspects such as style, layout, critical apparatus, reference system, etc. should also be attended to, complying with the journal’s guidelines. Book reviews do not require an abstract and should have between 1,500 and 3,000 words, if only one book is reviewed, and between 3,000 and 6,000, if several books are reviewed.

4. Review articles

Review articles are authoritative and balanced surveys of recent developments in a particular research field. Review articles do not report on original research but rather are based on other published articles, offering scholarly and thematic context and significant depth of analysis of the existing literature on a topic, in an attempt to explain the current state of understanding on the topic. Review articles require an abstract and should have between 3,000 and 6,000 words. RiCL will only consider review articles reporting on a topic related to the field of Corpus Linguistics. They should incorporate a review of previously published literature from the past 5-10 years as well as the author’s opinion and reflections about the issue being discussed.